162 SPOLTA ZEYLANICA. 



The nature of its bottom made the lower cave the easier to 

 examine, and so a longitudinal trench was dug in the longer axis of 

 the cave. The results of the excavation of the first two feet may 

 at present be ignored ; massive rock, which was taken to be the bed 

 rock of the cave, was reached at about 2| feet, and the interest of the 

 excavation centres in the lowest few inches immediately above the 

 cave floor under a deposit roughly 2 feet in thickness. In this zone 

 just above the bed rock there were found many fragments of quartz, 

 some milky, some ice-clear, some faintly opalescent, some smoky, 

 and some amethystine. A few of these were as big as hen's eggs, 

 the majority varied from the size of an apricot to a haricot bean, 

 some were even smaller. From the larger number of pieces of 

 quartz — nearly 300 — collected at the depth mentioned from this 

 trench, and a smaM trench driven at right angles to it, as well as the 

 absence of pieces of country rock, there can be no doubt that these 

 pieces of quartz were brought to the site in which they were found by 

 man. They were not water worn, and the variety of colour and 

 opacity they presented make it certain that they had not weathered 

 out in situ, in spite of the fact that quartz (but not as far as we 

 could determine ice-clear quartz) occurs in segregation masses in the 

 gneissic rock of the neighbourhood. When all the fragments were 

 carefully washed and examined it was found that some 3 per cent, 

 of the pieces of quartz obtained from this cave showed signs of work- 

 ing. They are in fact implements similar to those shown me by 

 Messrs. Green and Pole. 



Additional proof that the fragments of quartz had been brought 

 by man to the site on which they were found, was afforded by some 

 irregular digging done in the upper cave formed by the same rock 

 mass as the lower cave, and separated from it only by a few feet. 

 The floor of this cave was so rocky that a regular trench could not be 

 dug, but a number of holes — the largest perhaps 6 feet by 4 feet — 

 were dug down to what was apparently the country rock at the 

 bottom of fhe cave. Fragments of pottery and the bones of animals 

 were found in plenty in these holes, but altogether they yielded only 

 four pieces of quartz, namely, two water worn pebbles and two 

 broken pieces of clear glassy quartz. 



A well-marked bulb of percussion is present in a number of the 

 quartz implements ; this applies both to those in IMr. Pole's collec- 

 tion and to those we collected : some are worked on both edges, 

 others on one side only. In the majority the working is somewhat 

 rough, though this is not to be wondered at considering the refrac- 

 tory nature of the material, but a few of the best in the Pole 

 collection would be considered pretty specimens had they been 

 produced in soft stone. 



As regards the tji^e of these quartz implements, tMer'e seems no 

 good reason to consider them other than neolithic ; and except for 

 the material of which they are composed, many of the specimens 



